Comments on: 3G iPhone: First Thoughts

By: Today’s iPad Plan | Webomatica - Entertainment and Tech Digest

Today’s iPad Plan | Webomatica - Entertainment and Tech Digest — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 15:53:08 +0000

[…] (with reader Dave) way back when, waited in line for Panther, Tiger (predating this blog), and the iPhone 3G. Also posted others’ experiences getting the first iPhone (including reader […]

By: Womens Golf Pro

Womens Golf Pro — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:35:43 +0000

I have a ton of music too.…I use the genius on itunes to sync everything up. It makes the 16g feel like double…becuase there is always new stuff on it.

By: 3G iPhone: One Week Review » Webomatica - Technology and Entertainment Digest

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:44:32 +0000

[…] a week of reasonably heavy 3G iPhone use, I’m ready to amend my previous “initial thoughts” review. Some of my concerns have subsided, while others […]

By: papa

papa — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:30:16 +0000

So I picked one up this morning at the Downtown SF store (the line wasn't so bad, but purchase/activation time is still taking about 30-40 minutes).

Downer is that I just noticed some weird oily anomaly that is visible on the screen (under the plastic). So I will have to take this unit back to the Apple store and exchange it. Kinda a pain in the arse, but the device looks slick.

On the plus side I was able to keep my old family plan with the wife. All they did was tack on the $30 data fee.

Oh wells.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:01:26 +0000

Nice! Didn't think of a smart playlist, that's a good idea.

Oh man, I'll seriously need to look into this, then. Eventually. Thanks for the info!

By: webomatica

webomatica — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:11:09 +0000

I don’t think you can do auto fill as on the shuffle. I do have a fair amount of music, so what I did is set up a playlist that syncs with the iPhone. At the bottom of iTunes you can see the space the playlist will take up. There’s surely a way to set up a smart playlist that would randomly pick a bunch of songs, too. As for the price, yeah, so far it’s definitely worth it. I got the cheapest plan. All the plans have unlimited data which is what I’m going to be using the phone for most.

By: webomatica

webomatica — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:06:44 +0000

yeah now I’m trying to find apps that can be fun / useful on the go — twitterati and lastFM look promising. And I don’t get why the keyboard can’t be used in the rotated mode all the time — seems like only certain apps can be rotated.

By: baron

baron — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:20:36 +0000

Pretty much my conclusions exactly except the coverage part. Even the previous EDGE iphone would have been good to me (basically anything with a lighter data plan) for me to experience this. Now that I have it, I think the challenge is to really use it and find ways to make this investment worth it whether it be more productivity or social interaction (we can finally leave computers at home).

Having said that, it is more a glorified browser than anything else until we get voice input or something even crazier. Of course they could start by allowing portrait mode for emails.

By: webomatica

webomatica — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:45:08 +0000

My inability to use the phone 1 handed and the keyboard are definitely
because I’m still getting used to the device. I didn’t have a V1
iPhone so I have to go through that whole learning curve. I’ll
probably retract those gripes over time.

Now the battery life — I have to fiddle with that some. I’m turning
off the WiFi autodiscovery and turning off 3G unless I’m websurfing.
Lastly the coverage is definitely worse than Verizon. It ultimately
may not matter much as it’s a mobile device, for which I’ll obviously
be outside of the house where the reception is better. But the
coverage has me thinking I’ll switch over to WiFi I’ll do so, which
includes the house and work. Ultimately, the litmus test will be
during the work week when I’m out and about in SF and on the CalTrain
this next week, I’m pretty hopeful it will all be fine.

There could be a good side for people complaining about the 3G
coverage as it will make AT&T build out their network quicker — I want
mobile broadband now, please

Cool that you got your phone, too, there was just no way having this
weekend end without it!

By: jcieplinski

jcieplinski — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:56:33 +0000

I'm surprised to hear you say that you can't do much with one hand. I do almost everything, with the exception of extended typing of emails, or some games, with one hand.

The keyboard gets better over time. Especially if you learn to trust it and stop trying to fix every letter that comes out wrong. The auto-correction works brilliantly. Learn to trust it. Plus, the more you type, the more words it learns from you, so it will guess even better over time.

I type long emails all the time with my iPhone. I'm faster on that keyboard than I ever was on a Blackberry or Treo.

Battery life should also improve over time. For one thing, you're using it a lot more right now than you will on the average day a month from now. Also, batteries tend to hold charge a little better once they've been worked in/gone through a few charge cycles. Of course, the strength of your signal will have a huge impact on battery life, so if you're getting poor reception in your house, your battery is getting drained a lot faster than it would normally.

Have you tried switching to 2G when you're at home? Since you have WiFi at home anyway, your data will be the same. And your 2G signal may be stronger at home than the 3G is. The iPhone is supposed to switch between the two automatically when the 3G signal is just about nonexistent, but I've been reading that the threshold for that switch is maybe not what it should be.

Just got my 16 GB white one this morning. Still lines everywhere, still some check-out issues. For me, AT&T didn't want to allow me to upgrade, even though I was an original iPhone user and an AT&T customer way before they were even AT&T. Evidently, their database of SIM and IMEI numbers isn't completely accurate, and that sometimes bounces the upgrade eligibility. Took more than 20 minutes for the Mac Specialist to get a customer service rep from AT&T to fix the glitch. Oddly enough, once I got past that obstacle, activation (the part that was so screwed for people on Friday) took less than a minute.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:03:32 +0000

Do you have a lot of music? Does the iPhone support the auto-fill function that the Shuffle does?

I don't know that I could pick and choose 16 GB of music I'd definitely want - I've filled about 40 GB of an 80 GB iPod so far.

Beyond that, do you think the price is worth it? May I ask which data plan you opted for?